


Lessons

by LonelyIntrovert (orphan_account)



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Gen, Graphic Scenes, Internment Camps, Rape, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 13:29:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6471841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/LonelyIntrovert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patsy as a small child in the Internment Camp.  Not pleasant.  Things she learns and how they stick with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cruelty of Mother Nature

It was late March, when the order went out. Over the course of a week, Patsy was torn from her home and separated from her father. She remembers clinging to her mother and sister as they were all lined up, single file in the mud as rain poured around them. They were loaded in trucks, and she recalls choking back sobs as her mother restrained her, her father staring after the receding vehicle. It was wet season, and she never knew how soaked she could truly get until that summer. The drive was a good two hours long, into the forest, where a camp had been made. Small huts were erected by worn women, under the supervision of young, arrogant men. 

She was only six.

As the trees were chopped down for wood and clearance, the rain came down unabated and soon red, muddy rivets would course through the camps. When the whistle blew in the mornings, all the women would run out, their feet sinking in the mud up to their ankles. Soon, it was to their chins, and they had to resort to laying down strips of flat wood to act as a platform. The mud was everywhere. Patsy would return to the hut from gathering berries covered in it, but a few hours later she would wake up with a firm coat of dirt trapping her legs.

The huts themselves were not watertight, and soon would collapse under the added weight of the rain. The smell of rotten wood permeated the camp, accompanying the stench of body odor and fecal matter. It was during this time, the year of the rain as Patsy remembers it, that she was assigned to the medical hut, though it could be hardly called even that. 

While the incessant rain pounded in the background, women would come in with varying ailments: a wood chopper slipped in the mud and fell on her axe, some of the elderly women would turn up with different infections, a few young girls would be attacked by the guards, or sometimes, every once in a while, a baby would be born.

More than often, it was disease. It was slow at first, but soon cases would start racking up. Two cases of typhoid. What was that, dysentery? A few people had malaria. That one day, Patsy remembers, someone had smallpox. They burned her alive. As the black smoke and stench of singed flesh passed over them, the rain continued to pour over the group of women that watched soberly, the sound of deathly screams echoing over the camp. The hut in question smoldered for a week afterwards. And the women just stared, their faces drawn and haughty. 

They had been in the camp for nine months.


	2. Only Thieves Survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patsy learns to steal.

They were served rice twice a day. Sometimes, if they were lucky, another campmate would come across a rodent of some sort, and they would throw it over a spit or make it into a stew to accompany the rice. The rice was served in a long trough in the center of camp, close to the guard’s quarters so it could be closely supervised. In the beginning, it was all very civilized at mealtimes, they would line up single file and help themselves to whatever portion they wanted. 

But the food started running out. 

Within the first month, the women went into a feeding frenzy. They would line up at the edge of the feeding area, their lips drawn and eyes hardened as the rice was dumped in the trough. When the whistle was blown, all the women rushed forward, arms extended, elbows thrust wide so as to make enough room for themselves. Patsy would only manage a few handfuls, and being the smallest, ran back to her mother and sister to share. Her mother insisted that Patsy and her sister ate first, but soon Patsy began to notice how her skin hung limply on her frame, and how her bones began to grow more defined. The same applied to almost everyone in the camp. Hunger became a constant companion, never leaving Patsy. It would keep her up at night and make her knees tremble while standing at attention. It gnawed at her stomach and almost made her cry out at some points.

Almost.

She knew better than to start crying.  
Weak people cried.  
Weak people were stolen from.  
Weak people were trampled.  
Weak people were killed.

That was what was in her mind late one day when she came across a strange scene. She had been sent out to look for some herbs near the forest when she heard some scuffling noises on the edge of the forest. Patsy had been told never to go in the forest; it was dark and dangerous, and among all things, guards waited there for girls – for what reason, she knew not. Despite this, curiosity got the better of her and she stepped towards the noise. 

Peering behind a tree, Patsy caught a glimpse of another girl, probably three to four years older than herself, sitting on the bramble, her back turned to Patsy. That’s when the smell hit her. It was sweet and succulent, a smell she quickly identified as some sort of meat, probably duck or chicken. Her mouth almost automatically began to water, and her stomach clenched up as a need overtook her. The girl was obviously in the process of shoving it in her mouth, her hands at her mouth and her neck jerking up and down as she tried to swallow the morsels whole. 

It wasn’t fair.

Why did this girl get to have meat? Why is she eating more food than the rest of them? What did she do? Why is she hiding it? Why isn’t she sharing? Wasn’t it clear to her the rest of them needed the food too?

Why?

Why? 

WHY?! 

Patsy’s little body filled with a rage as a storm of confusion erupted through her. 

It isn’t fair

“Life’s not fair,” her mom used to say.

She should share.

Why? It’s hers, isn’t it? She doesn’t need to.

Frustration grabbed hold of her.

No.

No? No what? What are you going to do?

I’m going to take it.

She offered herself no reason, nor any method to her notion. All Patsy knew was hunger, and anger, and confusion. It consumed her, filled her with such fury that before she knew it, she had boldly stepped forward. It wasn’t until she was a foot away that the other girl noticed she was there. The girl didn’t have time to react before Patsy snatched the remaining meat up in her arms and sprinted away. The girl clawed at Patsy’s legs as she sped by and even gave chase, but after a while the girl fell behind and appeared to give up. Or lost her strength. Either way, Patsy stopped behind a bush just off of the trail, squatted down and inhaled the remaining drumstick as the sun set around her. She licked the bones clean, sucked grease off of her palms, and then she buried the evidence before setting off, not feeling an ounce guilty.

She was only seven.


End file.
